More medicalization attempts of climate skeptics by psychiatry professionals

Sigh, for some reason some people seem to think climate skeptics hate their children and grandchildren. I wonder if they’ve ever polled to compare with concerns for that other “pass on to the next generation” issue, our soaring national debt that our children and grandchildren have to pay for?

Climate Change, Narcissism, Denial, Apocalypse. The science is critical, but understanding why so many people are still in denial requires further explanation. Here’s an except from an Op Ed by Dr. Robert D. Stolorow at Psychology Today:

“On October 5, 2012, on the front page of the Huffington Post, appeared a terrifying image of melting arctic ice, accompanied by the chilling headline, “Arctic Ice Melt and Sea Level Rise May Be ‘Decades Ahead Of Schedule’” Why have the majority of Americans and American politicians been largely oblivious to this extreme threat? I believe there are two principal reasons.

The first is unbridled narcissism. Psychoanalytic developmental theorist Erik Erikson famously characterized an essential aim of adulthood as generativity—the caring for the well being of future generations. Climate change most likely will not be a threat for most of us, but it will leave our children, grandchildren, and future descendents with catastrophes of unimaginable proportions. In the deplorable obliviousness and indifference to the problem of climate change, any concern for the well being of future generations is being blatantly trumped by narrow self-interest and greed.”

The second is denial. What, precisely, is being denied? More than three decades ago I took my young son to a planetarium show at the New York Museum of Natural History. During that show it was predicted that a million years from now the sun will become a “red giant” that will engulf and destroy our entire solar system. This prospect filled me with intense horror. Why would a catastrophe predicted to occur in a million years evoke horror in me? Let me explain.

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A couple of points:

Here is the “terrifying” photo:

This Sept. 16, 2012, image released by NASA shows the amount of summer sea ice in the Arctic, at center in white, and the 1979 to 2000 average extent for the day shown, with the yellow line. Scientists say sea ice in the Arctic shrank to an all-time low of 1.32 million square miles on Sept. 16, smashing old records for the critical climate indicator. (AP Photo/U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, File)

The good doctor probably does not get to see the other view of sea ice, when it is at maximum in March:

Perhaps he doesn’t realize that the ice regenerates every year, and maybe he thinks that it becomes a permanent condition? Maybe he never looks at the Antarctic either, where the majority of the ice is, and setting new records for the most ice this year.

And since he’s arguing from a position of authority, I should at least point out that he hasn’t even got his basic facts straight.

During that show it was predicted that a million years from now the sun will become a “red giant” that will engulf and destroy our entire solar system. This prospect filled me with intense horror. Why would a catastrophe predicted to occur in a million years evoke horror in me?

Maybe it will be less horrifying when you learn your horror timeline is off by 4.999 billion years? From NASA “Ask an Astrophysicist“:

In the Soviet Union, systematic political abuse of psychiatry took place. Soviet psychiatric hospitals known as “psikhushkas” were used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate hundreds or thousands of political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. This method was also employed against religious prisoners and most especially against well-educated former atheists who adopted a religion. In such cases their religious faith was determined to be a form of mental illness that needed to be cured. Formerly highly classified extant documents from “Special file” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union published after the dissolution of the Soviet Union demonstrate that the authorities of the country quite consciously used psychiatry as a tool to suppress dissent.

Sound familiar when looking at what is being written about climate skeptics today?

I wonder who will be the first to propose that Gitmo have a section added for “climate deniers”?

The statement “arctic sea ice melt and sea level rise” is precisely why there is denial. The two are not linked which even the most casual science person should know. Arctic sea ice could melt 12 months of the year and we do not know if that will cause any change in sea level at all. Linking the two in a single statement is clearly deceptive. That’s why there are denialist a because the statements of people like this are either clearly misinformed, deceptive or just plain wrong. The facts are clear. We don’t understand climate well enough to make predictions. That’s all I keep pointing out to people. Yes temps have gone up but everybody assumes its because of one factor when the facts are temps have varied all along and it is simply too naive to say we know why.

During that show it was predicted that a million years from now the sun will become a “red giant” that will engulf and destroy our entire solar system. This prospect filled me with intense horror. Why would a catastrophe predicted to occur in a million years evoke horror in me? Let me explain.
Could it be because you’re a f…ing idiot?

“…That’s why there are denialist a because the statements of people like this are either clearly misinformed, deceptive or just plain wrong. The facts are clear. We don’t understand climate well enough to make predictions…”

The main reason that people like Dr. Robert D. Stolorow spout this alarmist drivel is mainly advocacy, as many liberal greens see CAGW as the perfect issue to ensure a return to a less populated Earth and a more ‘natural existence’ for the few that are left – what ever ‘natural’ means.

In this instance, our psychiatrist advocate is showing his slip, as he clearly doesn’t have a clue about how climate operates and is totally ignorant of the basic fact that over the course of history climate has always changed.

Doctor Stolorow has spilled the beans. GENERATIVITY. Attempting to create the future; putting the stamp of today on the future.

Take renewable energy/wind/solar. These technologies may be important . . . in a few hundred years. They are absolutely irrelevant today, even destructive. Why are so many lefties pushing them? Because they want to assert control on the future.

When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant’s competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. Additionally, a psychologist or psychiatrist shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air with a wand. Whenever a psychologist or psychiatrist provides expert testimony regarding a defendant’s competency, the bailiff shall contemporaneously dim the courtroom lights and administer two strikes to a Chinese gong.

What is the name for the very serious psychiatric condition for those who believe that when the government fails at something it is because there was not enough government involvement and money spent; even though with every spending increase or regulatory increase the results get worse. For example those who believe the spread of AIDS is directly due to the lack of government spending on the research? Change the questions in the questionnaire for this condition and see what they believe about spending and regulation on the environment?

This is the kind of garbage that made Richard Feynman despise psychology as a “science”. It seems to be a pathetic argument made by a grossly incompetent individual. The only narcissist I see here is the dolt making the ridiculous argument.

Are you certain about that? Stolorow’s bio says he is a “psychoanalyst” and mentions no medical degree.

Lewandowsky likewise lists no M.D. among his degrees. He’s a Ph. D.

Psychiatrists have medical degrees in addition to any training in psychology, psychoanalysis, or psycho-whatever. Psychology itself is not a medical degree in the proper sense of the word, anymore that sociology or anthropology are.

“Maybe it will be less horrifying when you learn your horror timeline is off by 4.99 billion years?”

More like 4.999 billion. But I reckon the basic problem with Dr. Robert D. Stolorow is that he can’t tell million & billion apart, what is more, he does not even care. One big number is five thousand times bigger than another one? So what? You still have a psychiatric condition, this time Anankastic Personality Disorder perhaps.

Of course, I agree with WUWT that national and state debts can be considered “catastrophes of unimaginable proportions” for “future descendents” because this spends future incomes before they are even earned, and without their consent.

It also could be considered a “catastrophe of unimaginable proportions” for “future descendents” when governments utilize scary water shortage models and proceed to grossly mismanage water sources, resulting in high costs and excessive regulation, raising food prices.

And another “catastrophe of unimaginable proportions” is the needless destruction of sources of cheap, abundant electricity and the installment of worthless intermittent wind turbines, which inject price volatility into the national economy, cause shortages, and include payouts to renewable owners at the expense of the citizens.

Even an extreme “narcissist” would not inflict these schemes on this or any other generation, because at least narcissists are restrained in their scheming and machinations by the fear of appearances, or the fear of even looking like he is ruining life for other people, because this would mean a loss of standing for the narcissist. Even a good old fashioned narcissist is preferable in these matters. The low carbon economy scam is just plain piracy and looting of what lawfully belongs to others.

Proffessor Thomas Szasz, cira 1980, On what would you say to an organization who insists we are all crazy and need their high-priced help. He was referring to the American psychiatric association.On topic, how does witch doctoring work? 1 Grant self an authoritarian title. check. 2 Accuse the dubious of your most feared sins check.3 Berate them until they retreat…Here is where it can go wrong for the power-hungry. For some reason, inexplicable to the high priests of doom, people get annoyed by their behaviour and generally react badly.
These attempts to medicalize questioning of the divine truth of AWG/CC/GCD/whatever they call team doctrine this week are clear evidence of surrender.

If some psychoanalyst wants to hang out his ignorance of the world for all to see, who are we to complain?

In 2002 he wrote a book entitled ‘Worlds of Experience’. Despite his age, I think perhaps he needs to get out more from under his psychoanalytic shell and experience more of the real world instead of foisting his ignorance of it on us.

The first is unbridled narcissism. Psychoanalytic developmental theorist Erik Erikson famously characterized an essential aim of adulthood as generativity—the caring for the well being of future generations.

Step #1 in us caring for future generations is to keep witch doctors like you from chucking them into a volcano to placate the demands of your imaginary climate gods.

Climate change most likely will not be a threat for most of us,

That is correct. It also marks the end of your knowledge. You should have stopped there.

…but it will leave our children, grandchildren, and future descendents with catastrophes of unimaginable proportions.

In the deplorable obliviousness and indifference to the problem of climate change, any concern for the well being of future generations is being blatantly trumped by narrow self-interest and greed.

We aren’t indifferent to it. We don’t believe it. Shamans like you either cannot tell the difference between those two circumstances, or are pretending otherwise to gain political ground (i.e. “narrow self interest and greed”). Our concern for future generations is focused on keeping them safe. From charlatans and political hacks like you.

“Psychoanalytic developmental theorist Erik Erikson famously characterized an essential aim of adulthood as generativity—the caring for the well being of future generations.”

To me the essential aim of my journey through adulthood is to keep my cool while I work in a Dilbertesque job and manage the meagre remainder of my salary that isn’t taxed away to provide rich salaries for the likes of Dr. Stolorow.

I’m so pleased to see all these bien pensant intellectuals putting themselves on record for everyone to see. This will make it easier once this is all over to set up a proper Hall of Shame. In addition to edifying exhibits showing the history of the hysteria and its many facets, this could include a ‘roll of honor’, perhaps in the style of the Vietnam Memorial.

From another angle, it’s almost as if someone had invented an extraordinary aerosol that causes all these creatures now ensconsed within the sinews of society to pause from gnawing at the foundations and connections and to crawl out into the sunlight and reveal their presence.

I categorize The eco-sustainable-socialist-left essentially as compulsive liars and this Op Ed is a glaring example: he quotes “an essential aim of adulthood as generativity—the caring for the well being of future generations.”

If that were true and if the eco-sustainable-socialist-left really cared about the future generations of humanity they wouldn’t be driving up the national debt of the USA to a point that will be lethal to civilized life. The greens have committed our progeny to a national debtors prison and are the cause of future democide. To feign that the future progeny is the basis for the actions of the left is an outrageous lie. They do care about a future, a future devoid of people and devoid of industry, devoid of religion, devoid of human supremacy. Heck, eco-sustainable-socialist-leftists don’t even reproduce themselves with a birthrate of 1.1 per couple.

I don’t subscribe to the eco-sustainable-socialist-left way of thinking. I do care about the future and refuse to spend our national riches on hype and phony science to advance a political theory that will hurt our children and grand children.

So I think I am in good company amongst the skeptics who care for our REAL future, who care about our kids who believe that REAL science is the method to understanding the material world.

Based on our collective empathy for our children, the desire for truth as an end itself we reject eco-sustainable-socialist-leftism and therefore we reject AGW populism

Great quote!!! Hope they made it a law. In enegineering school the easiest electives were psychology classes, so I took several, welcome respite from calc, statistics, physics, chemistry, eng drawing, etc. Not only were these professors idiots (except for one) they were personally emotionally and psychologically deficient. When I asked the one clinical psychologist professor I had (who was an MD as well) about this, he pointed out that this was quite common in that field as screwed up people were attracted to psychology as a field of learning perhaps trying to figure out why they were so screwed up. This has proven out almost always to be true in my dealings with these folks over the years.

I am constantly baffled by the near hysterical alarm that sea ice is melting when everyone should realize that ice melting by itself is not horrific wherever it occurs let alone in the ocean where it makes no difference at all. There must be something that the melting ice represents that frightens some people. So why is that not the headline? “Polar bears dying by the thousands : reason melting sea ice”. Well because polar bears are not dying at all. That canard fell a while ago that even alarmists know its not true. “Massive heat explosion in the north causing 70 degree days in middle of winter in Alaska north destroys vegetation and plankton. Loss of arctic sea ice to blame scientists say”. Well there is no evidence of any damaging effect of warmth in the arctic or sea ice melting. So I am constantly baffled. What is the “fear of?” What is the thing that makes them worry? Ice melts in my drinks every day. Melting ice by itself is a nonevent. Is it the loss of natural beauty of the ice? Fear that man will then exploit the exposed terrain for profit and the benefit of man? Frequently I get the feeling that these alarmists are scared we will benefit and if they don’t create a feeling of horror we will all think the warming is actually a benefit. They want us to feel bad so we restrain ourselves from benefitting ourselves. Greenland is becoming richer because of melting ice. Any farmer would realize warmer temps mean more arable land, longer growing seasons. Do they mean to make us fail to exploit the benefits or ignore the benefits?

Anyone stupid enough to not know the difference between a billion years and a million years, yet is allowed to hold positions of authority and high social status like “PhD” and make a living off the claim that they understand how the mind works fills me with laughter.
Of ridicule.
This writer, like his colleague Lewandowsky, offers nothing that is rationally useful.

There’s little to understand about Psychology and Psychiatry. Within Sociology we carry about the notion of the in-group and the out-group. Psychology is about utilizing persuasion to move people from the out-group to the in-group; it is simply Applied Sociology. Psychiatry is no more than the use of psychoactive substances to ensure that the subjects are suggestive enough to be swayed by Applied Psychology.

Anyone that is level-headed and competent at Psychiatry will not remain in the field unless they are, in some sense, evil. Or if you like: antisocial or narcissistic. And those that are either not level-headed or not competent should not be allowed access to psychoactive substances far stronger — and with more severe side effects — than those common ‘street drugs’ that are routinely outlawed and used as justification to kick in doors at midnight and meddle about in Central American countries. All due the harm they cause.

Any are free to disagree as they like. Simply refute Sociology’s idea that there is no ‘objective’ morality, norm, or more. As if there is not, then we can hardly justify any objective legitimacy — or handing police powers to — those individuals that make their trade plying drugs on the basis that there is.

Well, the good Doctor, assuming he really is a good doctor in his field, is obviously not a “climate scientist” so the warmist will ignore anything he says about the climate. (Isn’t that the mantra?)
And he is obviously not a PhD in any field that has anything to with astronomy so I don’t think there’s any real threat of “Solar System Warming” anytime soon.
(He does seem to a bit excitable. So if you meet him on the street, be kind. Don’t tell him that every breath he takes is exhaling CO2 and dooming his grandchildren to advancing beachfront property.)

Maybe it is a fear man will succeed. I have a brother who is environmental extremist and he does say things like man is evil. We deserve to perish for our sins to the earth, The fact man is so far as we know the most uniquely aware creature in the universe. We have no direct evidence there is anything but lifeless rocks anywhere else in the universe. Probabilistically that is ridiculous. There must be other life but until we can see or hear it I’m going that benefiting humankind is a good thing and that as a cheerleader for mankind I want us to figure this all out. Therefore of we can benefit from exposed minerals in Greenland we should utilize them prudently. We shouldn’t be scared of mans success. We should absolutely be striving to make our stand on the earth sustainable. I just can’t see the connection between that and leaving money on the floor unless someone can show how having more routes for access for trade and more minerals is bad for us longer term I feel that this fearmongering is subterfuge. There is no obvious reason why I should shake at the prospect of melting sea ice anywhere and for slow moderate increases in sea level that has been going on since the end of the last ice age. It feels like a reaction that people have to discovering the world wasn’t flat that we weren’tthe center of the universe. Climate has changed, sea levels have changed. It hasn’t been the same and suddenly it’s changing in some horrific unseen way. Most of the living species on this planet evolved over millions of years during periods far warmer and cooler than today during catastrophes and they all survived and even evolved. So what is to fear?

“The horror that I felt was an extreme form of existential anxiety—the anxiety that accompanies our recognition that, as finite human beings, we are constantly threatened by impending possibilities of harm, disease, death, and loss, which can occur at any time. ”

And would we not call people that obsess over the constant possible danger mentally ill?

“But what I felt at the planetarium show was more than that, because the sun’s becoming an engulfing red giant represents not just the destruction of individual human beings but of human civilization itself, a possibility vividly portrayed in the recent movie, “Melancholia.” ”

A possibility, a very very very distant possibility that is almost certainly never going to happen. Either humanity will have destroyed itself, will have been destroyed by other alien species, will have been destroyed by a newly evolved earth species (whether hyperintelligent apes or a supervirus that kills us all), or humanity will have become so advanced that we can live on our own artificial worlds/ships with an infinite supply of energy.

It’s preposterous to think that we’ll be at the mercy of the sun if/when it hits that point in its lifecycle.

“The destruction of human civilization would also terminate the historical process—the sense of human history stretching along from the distant past to an open future—through which we make sense out of our individual existences. I want to call the horror that announces such a possibility apocalyptic anxiety. Apocalyptic anxiety anticipates the collapse of all meaningfulness. And it is from apocalyptic anxiety that we turn away when we deny the extreme perils of climate change.”

Or perhaps it’s turning away from an imagined but non-existant phantom, which is causing some people to experiance Apocolyptic Anxiety. If it’s not AGW, it’s global cooling, or running out of oil, or civilization ending because computers don’t understand the year 2000, or an infinite number of other things which cause otherwise rational people to behave irrationally.

[My] jaw dropped in utter shock and amazement after reading the good doctors piece. How the hell does somebody that uninformed get to write an op-ed piece about so-called global warming/climate change? If he is a good a psychiatrist as he is climatologist/astronomer, God help his patients.

Any reasonably educated person should know the difference between a million, and a billion, and a trillion.

If PhD’s do not understand the difference, no wonder the public isn’t very worried about our $14 trillion federal debt. But that debt, which is still escalating, has the potential to destroy the economy.

“On October 5, 2012, on the front page of the Huffington Post, appeared a terrifying image of melting arctic ice, accompanied by the chilling headline, “Arctic Ice Melt and Sea Level Rise May Be ‘Decades Ahead Of Schedule’” Why have the majority of Americans and American politicians been largely oblivious to this extreme threat? I believe there are two principal reasons.”

I would simply dismiss this as another guy on the gravy train science game, getting money from the govt or Goldman Sachs’ charities or wherever. But this guy is a believer. Who quotes a headline as proof of anything?

Arctic ice melt & sea level rise. Arguably if the Arctic ice melts and then warms a few degrees to 4C, then the melt water will actually be shrinking (water is most dense at around 4C) causing a fall in sea level.

“What, precisely, is being denied? More than three decades ago I took my young son to a planetarium show at the New York Museum of Natural History. During that show it was predicted that a million years from now the sun will become a “red giant” that will engulf and destroy our entire solar system. This prospect filled me with intense horror. ”

Two things spring to mind

1. Sol will become a red giant in around 5 billion years, not one million – I’d want my money back, was it a creationist planetarium?

2. Does he expect to be here in a million years time to be ‘filled with intense horror’?

During that show it was predicted that a million years from now the sun will become a “red giant” that will engulf and destroy our entire solar system. This prospect filled me with intense horror. Why would a catastrophe predicted to occur in a million years evoke horror in me?

Hystrionic personality disorder?

Just a guess on my part. But I’ll wager I am a better at psychiatry than you are a climatology.

The line about being horrified at learning the sun will become a red giant in a million years has taken the early lead in Stupidest statements of the week. Forget about his being totally off on the timeline. Even at a million years, Dr. Stolorow provides a classic example of panties in a twist (as well as plain old fashioned stupidity). Who could possibly get worked up about something a million years away? Particularly when it involves the workings of a star. Perhaps the good doctor believes that if he just reasons with old Sol, he can make a difference.

This stuff is the future of popular science magazines… pandering to their readers political ideologies and backing it up with popular science anecdotes to reaffirm the reader’s desire to view those who disagree with them as contra-science and mentally deranged. At the same time it delivers that hit of superiority that they need to continue maintaining their holier then thou worldview.

This psychiatrist does not practice with mainstream beliefs. http://www.psychologyoftheself.com/newsletter/2003/buirski.htm is a good summary. He does not really believe in the individual mind. Intersubjectivity argues that who we are does not derive from anything intrinsic but from our interactions with our physical environment, cultural tolls, and social interactions.

It is not a factual theory. It is designed to be implemented to change people from the inside-out and how they relate to others. So that they see themselves less as an independent individual and more as a part of the collective.

I think one personal link per post is enough but I detailed the political, scientific, economic and social Transformation in Nine very graphic dimensions by futurist Bela Banathy. This is all a part of in a post on September 23 called “Who Granted Permission to Spearhead Societal Evolution to a Global Cooperative Consciousness?” His analysis of the mind fits in with the belief in a collective consciousness. It is an aspiration for the future though and not one where freedom and independence reside.

It’s not about temps. It is about power and control over individual behavior. The historic norm where there was no prosperity for the masses.

timg56 says:
October 8, 2012 at 12:15 pm
Perhaps the good doctor believes that if he just reasons with old Sol, he can make a difference.
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Maybe he’s on to something. We’ve been concerned about the wrong gas. We shouldn’t be concerned about CO2 but H2!

It is interesting to compare Dr. Robert D. Stolorow’s ad hominem to the observations, analysis in peer reviewed papers, and logic that supports the so called “skeptics” position that there is no extreme AGW problem to solve. The ad hominem is necessary as science does not support the extreme AGW paradigm.

Observations show major flaws
1. The missing heat is not in the ocean 8 – 14
2. Satellites show a warmer Earth is releasing extra energy to space 15 -17
3. The models get core assumptions wrong – the hot spot is missing 22 – 26, 28 – 31
4. Clouds cool the planet as it warms 38 – 56
5. The models are wrong on a local, regional, or continental scale. 63- 64
6. Eight different methods suggest a climate sensitivity of 0.4°C 66
7. Has CO2 warmed the planet at all in the last 50 years? It’s harder to tell than you think. 70
8. Even if we assume it’s warmed since 1979, and assume that it was all CO2, if so, feedbacks are zero — disaster averted. 71
9. It was as warm or warmer 1000 years ago. Models can’t explain that. It wasn’t CO2. (See also failures of hockey sticks) The models can’t predict past episodes of warming, so why would they predict future ones?

Weird how certain groups (warmists) do exactly what they demonize others for doing, when others are not even doing it. Warming is not happening, but they want to see it happening to feel vindicated, and they are going crazy with twisted logic.

In the Climate-gate emails Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia lamented that

“I recall giving lectures in the past when there would be one person who would disagree with something or all I said in an invited talk. The internet has allowed all these people to find one another unfortunately.”

Fortunately, Prof Jones, it also allows us all to find people like Dr. Robert D. Stolorow when we need a good laugh to cheer us up in the dreary British weather.

[Bloke down the pub, I think your earlier comment may have hit the nail on the head.]

The climate debate is mainly fueled by confirmation bias. One can hardly deny that WUWT is heavily influenced by confirmation bias, and we find of course a lot of confirmation bias in the other lair. To write off the “oblivious” as narcissists and whatnot can be sufficiently explained by confirmation bias as well. A view fit to confirm one’s own opinion in the debate. Someone who has studied psychology should have had the insight to see that.

Crazifornia has it’s crazy shrinks too! Stolorow lives in Los Angeles and I feel sorry for his patients because he has no common sense. He is horrified because the sun will become a red giant in a million years which will incenerate the earth? Really? May be he should write a prescription of Prozac for himself.

D Böehm: Is that a US Billion or British Billion? I have had discussions with British colleagues who assure me that a Billion of something is a million million or 10^12 while here in the US a Billion of something is a thousand million or 10^9. There are three orders of magnitude difference just across the stormy pond of the Atlantic to reconcile here! So I am not sure that even scientists can get this whole billion thing down, let alone a lowly psychoanalyst. Though either way he is off several orders of magnitude, whether it is 3 or 6 is the question.

It would be much easier if language would stay put when we nail it to the wall, but it seems to shift every time we take our ears off of it! As Churchill is reported to have said: “two peoples divided by a common tongue!”

The good doctor/analyst either pulled the 1 million out of his hat as he could not remember or was just plain lying to make it sound more dramatic. Either way that sort of behaviour, although perhaps trivial to some is not acceptable for someone of his (?) standing.

If there are any people left who still believe that psychiatry is a valid branch of science operating under the scientific method, this individual, Dr. Robert Stolorow, has just disabused them of that notion.

Does the good doctor have any idea why skepticism is essential for scientific– and therefore human– progress?

Well I got a chance to carefully read that Psychology of Self article I linked to above with Stolorow from 2002 in the carpool line. Being called narcissist for looking for scientific proof from a prof who is reinventing psychology theory to fit with the socialist theory of the mind may well be a compliment.

What he calls NeoCartesian most of us recognize as Marx as in Uncle Karl or John Dewey’s view or Vygotsky’s. The troubling part is the publication in Psychology Today. They also published an article a few months ago pushing civics values that taught a markedly collectivist view that had no acquaintance with the US Constitution.

It suggests to me that Marxian political and cultural theory without using the M word must be a big part of what passes as undergrad psych today. Largely Unemployable in a middle class earning job and trained to think like a Marxist without knowing it.

I guess the triple ouch would be if you still have student loans for that degree.

The fact that someone who wants to reinterpret psych to fit political theories is angry about deniers is interesting. A reminder that AGW and climate change, like education, are mostly tools of statist subjugation over the individual and the economy these days. They just do not want to say so because we just might cut off funding and tell the kids a plumbing degree makes more sense than most college degrees these days. Especially with borrowed money.

The climate debate is mainly fueled by confirmation bias. One can hardly deny that WUWT is heavily influenced by confirmation bias, and we find of course a lot of confirmation bias in the other lair. To write off the “oblivious” as narcissists and whatnot can be sufficiently explained by confirmation bias as well. A view fit to confirm one’s own opinion in the debate. Someone who has studied psychology should have had the insight to see that.

I don’t know about you, but I have yet to see data that wasn’t tortured beyond all recognition which conclusively refutes the null hypothesis that the temperature changes we have seen are consistent with natural variability. Most of us here would probably begin studying the cost-benefit of mitigation and weighing the potential damage if nothing is done if we were to see non-tortured results indicating AGW. Though I daresay, with the preponderance of engineers here, we would likely look to adaptation techniques rather than doomed attempts to change the climate. Practical people analyze problems and seek the simplest solutions, and finding simple adaptations to enable society to continue with minimal disruption is far more palatable than the “kill off 95% of the worlds population” solutions advocated by radical environmentalists. Of course if all you have is a hammer, the world looks like a nail.

As for the red giant problem…in 5 billion years we might have figured out how to move the whole planet out of harms way – you never know.

Robert Stolorow on narcissism: How about you, Dr. Stolorow? And how about all the AGW freaks? Al Gore, George Soros?

Obviously, Dr. Stolorow, you have no substantive arguments to make against skeptics, so you attack them personally. Typical of the-end-justifies-the-means thinking. A reeactionary, inhumane idea, long since discredited on all acounts.

“I wonder if they’ve ever polled to compare with concerns for that other “pass on to the next generation” issue, our soaring national debt that our children and grandchildren have to pay for?”

Irony: a still growing % of that debt is owed right back to the Federal government by unemployed liberal arts majors, all who will suffer further ego annihilation when their parent’s window thermometer fails to catch fire as the clock ticks and tocks.

Hmnnn, ze psychiatrists spend most of ze time, telling ze patients – ‘don’t vorry! vat you are feeling is engsiety, it is not real…here hev some drugs’. Or,
‘You should try and relex, vot you are feeling is called paranoia…really no one is out to get you…here take zeeze drugs’. Or,
‘Zose voices you are hearing in your head?…zey are not real…vee call zem delusions, zeeze drugs vill make zem go avay’. Or,
‘Zat ‘Cult leader/Pastor’ who is predicting ze end of ze world? He is vot ve call a self-aggrandising, narcissistic-sociopath, vis messianic tendencies…ignore him. And if zat doesn’t work I’ll give you zis drug here….
‘On ze other hand Global Varming now zat is a real problem, I am filled with trauma and angst….I zink I better proscribe myself some drugs.’
Fessinating.

OMG! He invents and diagnoses himself as suffering from “Apocalyptic Anxiety” Disorder having apprehension, uncertainty, and fear resulting from the anticipation of a prediction of a exaggerated disastrous outcome, but doesn’t recognize it and instead accuses those that don’t suffer from AAD as having some sort of mental problem. Can it get any more cognitively dissonant than that?

“a US Billion or British Billion? I have had discussions with British colleagues who assure me that a Billion of something is a million million or 10^12 while here in the US a Billion of something is a thousand million or 10^9. “

That’s correct, Owen in GA. A British billion is 10^12 But in everyday life the term billion is usually taken as 10^9. £10 billion would be understood as £1000,000,000

Alarmism is such a lazy philosophy. With a basis of non-realism, and no desire for fact verification, he might as well have attempted to validate his point with: being fill the horror of waking up to find a dragon in his living room, instead our sun going supernova.

He has a PhD in Clinical Psychology from an accredited school, and has a California psychology license. This evidence is not too difficult to find. He is a licensed healthcare provider, just the same as any licensed nurse, PA, pharmacist, or physical therapist.
That doesn’t make him an expert on global warming. It does totally legitimize him as a healthcare professional, even if no one sees the M.D. after his name that they believe they should see, being ignorant of the degree to be expected of a psychologist.
We would be in bad shape if the only healthcare provider we perceived as legitimate were those with M.D. after their name.

More than three decades ago I took my young son to a planetarium show at the New York Museum of Natural History. During that show it was predicted that a million years from now the sun will become a “red giant” that will engulf and destroy our entire solar system. This prospect filled me with intense horror.

If you really believed the sun would engulf the entire earth in about a million years, then the only rational response is to support continued technological development so we have the means to get off this planet sometime in the next 999,000 years. If we accept a return to 18th century technology to satisfy some people’s phobia about global warming, then our great * 10^5 grandchildren are doomed.

But as others hear have pointed out, the real timescale is about 5 billion years from now, which means either the people putting together the planetarium show were incompetent, or your 30+ year ago self was not paying proper attention and you have never in the intervening decades improved your understanding of what you thought you heard. This is rather like admitting you’re still afraid of the ghost stories you heard around the campfire at Cub Scouts.

However if you are just naturally prone to worry, the odds are we will experience a large asteroid strike long before even a million years have run out, so we need to develop the capability to survive that even sooner. And the odds are pretty good that before a major asteroid impact comes we will be in the depths of another ice age. Wind turbines, solar farms, and biofuels are not going to help us with either of these virtually certain catastrophies.

I think there must be a word in psychology for people who obsess about distant and improbable disasters while ignoring much closer and more likely ones.

Here’s an except from an Op Ed by Dr. Robert D. Stolorow at Psychology Today:“On October 5, 2012, on the front page of the Huffington Post, appeared a terrifying image of melting arctic ice, accompanied by the chilling headline, “Arctic Ice Melt and Sea Level Rise May Be ‘Decades Ahead Of Schedule’” Why have the majority of Americans and American politicians been largely oblivious to this extreme threat?”
=======================================================

My first impression: Dr. Robert D. Stolorow urgently needs to consult a psychiatrist, as a patient, of course.

His using the expressions “terrifying image”, “chilling headline” and “extreme threat” is a strong indication of a paranoia.

rw says: October 8, 2012 at 11:30 am
“From another angle, it’s almost as if someone had invented an extraordinary aerosol that causes all these creatures now ensconsed within the sinews of society to pause from gnawing at the foundations and connections and to crawl out into the sunlight and reveal their presence.”

If there are any people left who still believe that psychiatry is a valid branch of science operating under the scientific method, this individual, Dr. Robert Stolorow, has just disabused them of that notion. . . .

Stolorow isn’t a psychiatrist. He’s ****** psychologist who teaches psychoanalysis. This isn’t to say you’re wrong about psychiatry, but keeping things straight helps the discussion. A psychiatrist has an MD and generally deals with what are called “organic disorders.” Psychologist -> words, psychiatrist -> drugs.

So, someone who demonstrably knows bugger all about something feels “an extreme form of existential anxiety” and it’s supposed to be our fault? The frightening thing is that it’s people like him who will influence the shower in power. (Shudder)

@Owen in GA – those “billions”. It was you guys who bent the meaning. The higher “-illions” were invented (late 19th / early 20th century) by scientists who were fed up with having to repeat “million million million million …” (etc.) in lectures, mostly in astronomy or atomic physics. So they coined the “bi-million”, or billion, to mean “million million”, the “tri-million” or trillion, to mean “million million million” and so on up. A sextillion or septillion covers most scales you need up or down from unity (i.e. a factor of 10^36 or 10^42).

However, you will perhaps be reassured to hear that the British use of the word has also now been warped with the ongoing Americanisation of our language, as I had to explain a few years ago to a German friend (the Germans still use the words as originally intended, since they don’t speak “almost the same” language as Americans, as we Brits do). The depressing result of this was seeing Prof. Jim al-Khalili on a TV programme recently, talking about so many “million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion …” – thereby neatly rendering the entire process of trying to tidy up big numbers completely irrelevant.

I just use powers, myself, now, as there’s no arguing with those. Yet.

Psychology today is a super market tabloid. Before doing clinical work in Psychology, My School Dean said the difference between the psychologists and the patients is that the patients do NOT carry a set of keys.to the facility.

I think I get it now. The people who do NOT believe in imminent catastrophe are the ones who believe in conspiracies. But those who think, contrary to all evidence, (including the Gleick affair) that their opponents are all funded by BiG OiL, are not.

And the ones exaggerating their results, being prima donnas, and in the paper all the time saying the world is going to end if we don’t listen to them are NOT narcicists. Ok, got it.

Oh yeah, and skeptics are fascists at heart or something, but it’s always those on the CAGW side that are implying that people they disagree with may end up in prison or a looney bin some day.

Several commenters have asked variants of “Who could possibly get worked up about something a million years away?”

The reason is engineering. Because the sun is about 5 billion years old, a million years would be 1/5000th of the sun’s life. In probabilistic terms, it means the sun as likely to explode tomorrow as it is a million years from now. When I read his statement above, I myself was immediately worried, then I figured the guy was an idiot and remembered the number was in the billions, then I read further into the thread and saw the correct estimates.

In the meantime we have the prospect of the sun getting dimmer in the short term (decades) as well as next few billion years. The former used to worry me before I found out that CO2 will offset some or all of the solar cooling.

The sun becoming a red giant in a million years would be like glaciers covering the northern hemisphere overnight. If the sun was to become a red giant in a million years it would already well be on its way to that stage and we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

In the USA there’s a lot of “denial” and the social scientists and other assorted history challenged lefties go crazy trying to explain it. Perhaps the simple answer is that in the US the entire purpose of the bill of rights is to protect the individual from the government, so there’s natural anipathy to any and all attempts to invoke government power and controls. Climate alarm advocates of course require top down governmental control in their argument, so there exists plenty of “denial” on that basis alone.

Good heavens, the PhD author of this could have simple consulted a couple of Eagle scounts and saved a great deal of time and angst.

Problem is that one assumes that the US taxpayer is on the hook for this crap.

I dunno, I’ve been pretty sure of some sort of mass delusion in the scientific community for a few years now. But this effort to make denialism into a specific psycological disorder that requires explanation, and possibly treatment, just smacks of the USSR.

“(In the case of psychology, the meanderings of the human mind leads to the conclusion humans are utterly unpredictable, unless they are psychologists, in which case they obey Smurphy’s Law, which states a psychologist will succumb to whatever ailment he is expert in.)”

Such fellows are laughable, but dangerous. Should they gain power over our lives, we are in deep doo-doo.

Dr. Bob ? Wasnt he on The Muppets………. Apologies to the Muppets. Many years ago my best friend was committed to a psychiatric hospital. He told me 2 weeks later that he had problems that can be dealt with. All good so far. He carried on, I have problems that can be dealt with,but not here, most of the senior staff dont know they themselves are nuts. He has been fine ever since.

So, I’m in denial if I believe that a man who is wildly wrong in predicting the future of our sun can’t possibly predict the future of our climate? I can live with that.

As for having “unbridled narcissism” for not caring about future generations, he’s got it completely backwards. Even if he is right that a warming world will be a bad thing, it will be far cheaper to adapt to the warming than to try to prevent it. If we do what he wants and cut out the use of fossil fuels, the next generation will not survive long enough to have to worry about a warming world.

“For decades psychiatrists and psychologists have claimed a monopoly over the field of mental health. Governments and private health insurance companies have provided them with billions of dollars every year to treat “mental illness,” only to face industry demands for even more funds to improve the supposed, ever–worsening state of mental health. No other industry can afford to fail consistently and expect to get more funding.” (Except CAGW)

“Crime in the mental health industry is far from limited to money matters. A review of more than 800 convictions of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists, between 1998 and 2004 reveals that 43% of the convictions were for fraud, theft and embezzlement; 32% for sex crimes; 7% for patient assault and violent crime; 6% for drug offences and another 6% for manslaughter and murder.

“Dr Thomas Dorman, member of the Royal college of Physicians of the UK and Canada, sums it up: “In short the whole business of creating psychiatric categories of ‘disease’, formalising them with consensus, and subsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them, which in turn leads to their use for insurance billing, is nothing but an extended racket furnishing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura. The perpetrators are of course feeding at the public trough.”http://www.cchrstl.org/documents/fraud.pdf

Many a true word….
“Psychiatrists tend to believe that they have a special understanding both of the minds of others, and of the nature of reality in general. They typically will believe that they know what is going through the minds of other (“Thought Decryption”), and, more importantly, what should be going through the minds of others. Often, it is believed that the thoughts or feelings of others are wrong, and that the persons mind must be fixed (“cured”) to match what the psychiatrist thinks should be in the patient’s mind.

“Any disagreement with the psychiatrist’s views or refusal of treatment is likely to be taken as a sign of just how “disturbed” (thinking incorrectly) the “patient” is. In addition, psychiatrists often believe that their own view of reality is absolutely correct, or at least close enough to judge other views as wrong, defective, or delusional. Views of patients that conflict with those of the psychiatrist are taken as signs of severe disease, and as needing to be “cured.”http://isnt.autistics.org/dsn-psy.html

Error in the title – the good doctor is not a medical doctor, which psychiatrists are, and they are the ones pushing medicines these days- apparently they’ve given up on Freud (hasn’t everyone?).
Presumably this guy is a clinical psychologist, but regardless of what “credentials” he himself
may possess, the profession itself is of little practical value.- neither clinical psychology nor psychiatry can claim any ability to cure much of anything, excepting some phobias – using techniques they lifted from animal trainers. As a science, psychology does much better in
grade B Hollywood films than in the real world. Society needs people that mentally afflicted folks
can be sent to and psychiatrists and clinical psychologists were more or less invented to be those people. I remember one study that found it advantageous to not send incoming mental patients to
be treated by a psychiatrist – they had a much better chance of recovering if left alone.

I have an experimental Psychology PhD from the University of Edinburgh. The British Psychological Society, that accredits our psychology degrees insists on a spine of research design and statistics throughout. Every student I taught over 20 years ran correct experiments gathering empirical data and analysed them using a range of tests to find out if their theory and hypotheses were supported or not. I believe this is called ‘doing science’. I dislike Psychiatrists, a feeling shared with many of my colleagues, because they presume scientific standing for their case studies and elevate their ‘diagnostic skills’ to be on a par with solid experimental research. I can believe that a psychiatrist would make such appalling errors recounted here but not a psychologist trained under the auspices of a good university and the watchful eye of the BPS. To many, the terms ‘psychologist’ and psychiatrist’ are interchangeable; they are not. I’m a sceptic about humans being able to change the climate simply because the empirical evidence does not support it. As Husserl said: ‘To the facts!’

There are indeed rational psychologists that can explain the ‘liberal mind’.

In regard to the political dimension, the Green Agenda website should be mentioned from time to time, since there may be new readers that are unaware of the extreme worldview that animates the CAGW attack on the West. Reading quotes from the leaders of environmental politics gives the game away.http://www.green-agenda.com/

“Arctic Ice Melt and Sea Level Rise May Be ‘Decades Ahead Of Schedule’”

Sea level rise, you could prove this false easily.
Well, you could, if the ocean reference page had some sort of…useful, relevant sea level rise graphs. However, it does not, the farthest back it goes is 1993, far to short to be relevant, the only graph that goes back further is only about thermosteric component of it.

The only really possibly scary thing the warmists can threaten with is sea level rise, and you don’t cover sea level rise?!??

You want to show that warming is not happening, the below is still true:
If it is warming, the ice will be melting.
If it melts, the sea will be rising.
The sea is not rising.
Therefore the ice is not melting.
Therefore the world is not warming.
It’s just that simple.

Through an online enquiry form I sent Dr Bob some information about WUWT and also invited him to join this discussion so that he could become better informed about climate. He should turn up any moment now…….

Oh how ironic for a shrink to use these words and miss a wonderful opportunity for self-diagnosis of his own cognitive dissonance. There is little doubt that the shrink is a liberal ( American sense ), one unerringly who no doubt voted for lefties like President DingleBarry and every other socialist he possibly can. Why does that matter? Simple! With just a change of a word or two we can demonstrate the severe mental illness that afflicts these phonies …

“The first is unbridled narcissism. Psychoanalytic developmental theorist Erik Erikson famously characterized an essential aim of adulthood as generativity—the caring for the well being of future generations. Climate change most likely will not be a threat for most of us, but it will leave our children, grandchildren, and future descendents with catastrophes of unimaginable proportions. In the deplorable obliviousness and indifference to the problem of climate change, any concern for the well being of future generations is being blatantly trumped by narrow self-interest and greed.””

‘The first is unbridled narcissism. Psychoanalytic developmental theorist Erik Erikson famously characterized an essential aim of adulthood as generativity—the caring for the well being of future generations. 16 Trillion dollar debt most likely will not be a threat for most of us, but it will leave our children, grandchildren, and future descendents with catastrophes of unimaginable proportions. In the deplorable obliviousness and indifference to the problem of deficit spending, any concern for the well being of future generations is being blatantly trumped by narrow self-interest and greed.”’

Trust me, this person will crawl over broken glass to get to the booth on election day to inflict our future descendents with catastrophes of unimaginable proportions. He knows full well what these socialists are up to, and so he deflects onto the strawman of Climate change so as to be able to sleep at night and not face the demons he helps facilitate.

Well, if you want a classic study of the tactic, have a look at “The Myth of Mental Illness”, by Thomas Szasz.
Pretty much establishes the case that the entire Psych profession exists to control eccentricity and dissent.

It would be intersting to know what proportion of WUWT readers realised the 1 million year gaf was absurd the moment they read it.

I’m genuinely surprised that people with a level of advanced scientific education, as I assume this “doctor” has, can be so completely illiterate on stuff that is just general science and requires no specialist training at all.

I can believe that a psychiatrist would make such appalling errors recounted here but not a psychologist trained under the auspices of a good university and the watchful eye of the BPS.

Stephen Lewandowsky trained at several universities, currently professes at the University of Western Australia, and operates under the auspices of BPS offshoot Australian Psychological Society. He is frequently seen sporting a derriere chapeau. What do you think is going on there?

D Böehm says: Any reasonably educated person should know the difference between a million, and a billion, and a trillion.

Heh, yes, you’d think anyone venturing into a supposed discussing involving science or politics (or both) would know these distinctions quite well. But it’s also pretty well established that people of a certain political bent cannot fathom large numbers, spending levels, budgets, deficits, debt, and this incomprehension creates fodder for a competing psychological theory as to why this Ph.D bozo was SO wrong.

A few weeks back on a Yahoo news thread, a raging lefty indignantly compared this years’ annual state operating deficit of Republican dominated (ergo, bad) Texas with that of Democrat controlled (therefore, good) California. He claimed California was in good shape, because they had a deficit of only 16 million, whereas Texas had a much higher deficit of 25 million. I gave him a little tap-on-the-shoulder, and politely informed him that his California number was a little off, and is, in fact, 16 billion, as opposed to 16 million, meaning it’s deficit is currently 640 times higher than Texas’. But I gave him some encouragement, too. I told him that being wrong by only 3 orders of magnitude isn’t too bad for a lefty. The ingrate gave me a thumbs down. ;-)

I really don’t think that there is a period of history to compare with this one, where so many people with advanced degrees have studied so hard, often in areas outside of their range of scientific competence, .but missed the implication of the data by miles by miles and miles.